Read The Orion Deception for Free Online Page A

do?"
    "Sit there, do nothing, and look ugly." Heck smirked as Lainne's ugly face grimaced at the insult. "I'll handle this."
    Lainne watched as Heck casually strolled back toward the lavatory at the rear of the shuttle. As he neared the well-dressed man seated aft of them, he very quickly drew a small pistol from inside his waistband and shot the man in the foot. Using that moment of stunned surprise, he stepped behind the seat, put his arm around the man's throat, and used him as a shield. The seat-backs on this shuttle were low, below the shoulders of the passenger, and Heck was able to use his weight to keep the man's neck over the top of the seat like a lever. The suddenness of the attack shocked everyone into a moment of inaction; even the pilot was distracted and the shuttle veered dangerously. Two passengers sitting to the left of the aisle, and behind the pilot, stood and reached for their weapons. Disbelief was on their faces.
    Lainne had expected Heck to offer a warning or a shouted command to the two who were clearly moving to confront him, but he didn't. As the man managed to get out from the narrow seats and into the aisle, Heck shot him. He dropped his gun and fell down, clutching his wounded shoulder, whimpering. The woman stopped where she was with her hands out at her sides, a look of caution in her eyes.
    "Look," began the woman. "This doesn't need to happen. You have to-" but she didn't get to finish her sentence.
    The man on the floor had made a sudden move for the gun that he had dropped a moment earlier. Heck fired a shot into the deck near the man's head, just as he reached for the weapon; the man wisely decided to remain still. The woman glanced down at the man that Heck assumed was her partner, and said nothing. Seeing the woman's choice of attire, a dress with high heel shoes, Heck thought that these two must be very inexperienced agents. They had a very poor grasp of tactics and had allowed their quarry to overcome them very quickly. Not to mention the lack of maneuverability that the woman's attire forced upon her.
    They should never have allowed us to sit behind them , he thought with a smile.
    To further demonstrate the incompetence of the two, the woman suddenly reached into her purse and pulled out a pistol. But Heck was already trained on the woman and squeezed off a shot before she could do the same. He was fairly sure that his first shot hit the mark, but the woman ducked down behind the seat row and he couldn't be sure. She could have been wearing ballistic protection. He fired again, this time at the back of the seat where he guessed she now was hiding and was rewarded with a shriek of pain.
    The last person on the shuttle was huddled in his seat, and Lainne could tell by the odor that the man had wet himself from fright. She didn't think he was Commonwealth a g ent.
    Heck kept his arm around the throat of the man in his grasp and pinned him to his seat. The man was remarkably calm. He made no complaints and did not seem to mind that his neck was within inches of snapping. He simply waited for the situation to play out. Lainne wondered what Heck was waiting for, why he hadn't released the man's neck. She was beginning to feel sorry for him.
    "Heck," she began quietly. "Shouldn't you-" but she didn't get to finish her sentence. A loud crack told her that another shot had been fired, this time by the woman who had managed to wiggle down and under the seats. She fired again, wildly, the rounds going nowhere near Heck. The ex-lawman had his body behind his human shield, but calmly held his pistol pointed toward the area where the woman was hiding. Finally, his patience was rewarded when the woman made a leap into the aisle and tried to get to the pilot.
    But Heck Thomas had been ready for such a move, knowing that the woman had little choice but to try using a human shield of her own. If the pilot died, it was very likely that they would all die. But her gamble failed miserably. Heck shot her